Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/144

 and down the stage, recites dialogues, makes imitations, and, in short, performs a dramatic entertainment. He was originally a comic actor, and turns his experience to excellent account. His gifts are not great; he is the Henry Russell of lecturers, vulgar and clap-trap, but with genuine power over the popular heart.

"I met Dr. Hughes, the eminent Archbishop of New York, in the House of Commons lately. He has a notable Roman head, the side face of which looks like the head on a coin in the time of Cæsar. He struck me as shrewd and clear rather than great or impressive. He says that Fr. Mullen's letter on the condition of Irish Catholics in the U.S. contained exaggerated statements, but he admits the lapses from religion are numerous. Meagher, he says, might have been anything in the United States which the votes of the people could make him if he had sat down to work at a profession in a quiet, serious manner. He considers him now irretrievably lost in habits and opinions, a hard judgment surely.

"I met Sir William Molesworth at dinner for the first time to-day; he interested me as the first of the philosophical Radicals who had been called to office. He is shy and pedantic, but apparently good-natured, and undoubtedly upright and sincere. He seems to suffer habitual physical pain, which Dr. Brady, who sat near me, explained. He is very industrious, notwithstanding the popular impression to the contrary. Dr. Black, who accompanied him, is his mentor, educated him in politics, still sometimes furnishes, Brady says, the material of his speeches, and manages his affairs. Of this latter function Brady gave me a startling instance. At some public dinner, where Molesworth, who presided, put down his name for a subscription, when the paper, which passed around the table, came to Black, he altered the figures, doubling the amount his friend had proposed to give.

"I breakfasted with Godley, the founder of the Canterbury settlement in New Zealand, and had some interesting talk with him. He assumed that I must go into politics, and his theme was patience and moderation. The Colonists could get anything that they wanted or that was good for them from a Government which, whoever were in power, would